Everything That Was Done
by looking.for.lola
Summary: An ongoing series of ficlets centered on the Bunansas. New ficlet: The Day You Hoped Would Never Come, Balthier/Fran-centric.
1. Everything That Was Done

**Author's Note: **_This is a very short ficlet based on Cid's thoughts following Balthier's appearance at Draklor. I've never submitted work here before, so I thought it better to start with something small. :) Although it's short, should you feel inclined to review, I'd appreciate it._

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It wasn't as much of a shock as it should have been, watching the boy appear so suddenly, and yet his stomach heaved with feelings that hadn't burdened him for six years. What a bitter homecoming for the prodigal son, arriving at the culmination of that which had caused him to run. What a shame he should be drawn into that over which he scorned family and home. There was anger, pity, disappointment; oh yes, the disappointment was the greatest. The boy didn't even have the strength to maintain his abandonment. He had failed in his flight. Perhaps that was why his voice from the doorway came as no surprise; the boy's only constant success was in falling short of expectations.

Still, it was proper, it was right. Sons should bear witness to their fathers and their fathers' triumphs. The boy ought to understand by now; after all, he has also allied himself to a cause. Returning a dethroned princess to her rightful place. The deliverance of a nation, ha. The scope was too small; the boy's ambition had always been too small. He resisted his potential, when he could have been great. The boy could have shared in the victory. He could have been his father's son.

He knows what the boy has never known. He knows that they have ever always wanted the same thing. The manifestations were different (the boy never could see the big picture, always absurdly focused on the minutiae, the irrelevant), but the drive stemmed from the same source. The boy was his, at the heart of it. The boy sprung from his own mind, his own blood. In their essence they cried out for a singular desire. For them, everything that was done was done for the sake of freedom.

In the end, he knows what the boy will never know; that it was all done for him.


	2. Paying For It

**Author's Note:** _I have decided to just keep this story open as a place to put ficlets as I feel like writing them. I intend to stick with a general theme centered on Cid and Balthier and their relationships. As always, reviews are appreciated. :) Many thanks for reading!_

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Balthier was scornful of many things. Archadian bureaucracy, Rozzarian airship design, and Dalmascan outerwear were but a few of the subjects that earned a sneer and a brush-off from him. With such selective taste as the pirate was imbued with, it was little wonder that he chose a life without landing or loyalty to any colors. Balthier was a man free to judge as he willed, arms crossed and one cocky eyebrow raised. It was a privilege he fought dearly for, sacrificing all that he had been raised to know, and perhaps, love. He was glad of it. His scorn was well paid for, and nothing caused it to run deeper than those who lived in regret.

He was surrounded by regret, it seemed. These people had it in spades. Vaan and Penelo regretted the loss of their families, the loss of the lives they knew to the ambition of the Empire. However, they were young, and that was powerful medicine. Each day they leaped forward to embrace it anew, and Balthier could see that regret could never hold them long. He often wondered how they stayed so buoyant when his own soul had been already hollow at their age.

The princess had regrets in plenty; her poor dead father, her poor dead prince, her poor dead kingdom. Balthier would have scorned her as well, if it were not for the passion with which she fought those specters. He recognized that fight, knew it blow for blow. She too deplored feelings that bound one so tightly to the past, though she was far more susceptible to them than Balthier knew himself to be. She would have lost her war, the pirate knew, if he hadn't taken her ring, cut her ties.

The captain, the once "Kingslayer," was swamped with regret. Balthier often wondered how Basch didn't drown under the sheer weight of his failures. It was his honor that upheld him, but Balthier couldn't fathom the concept: honor was just another chain in the shadows of his past. Basch survived somehow, but Balthier hated sharing a watch with him at night, when the waves of regret flowed from him unceasingly in the dark.

Even Fran, ethereal Fran, who stood above most emotions as if they were unworthy of a place in her heart; even she knew regret. Balthier would even argue that she understood it better than a Hume ever could. Yet she prevailed. Fran was his bastion, a glowing pillar against choking regrets. He walked with her; he too pushed aside regret completely in order to embrace the skies… or so he believed.

Damn the day he stepped foot in Archades, the hour he tread the halls he walked as a boy, and later, when he was no longer a boy, but less than a man. Curse that jovial face, the knowing smirk and glint of mad genius in the old man's eyes. Balthier spent every night after that unwanted reunion reliving the reasons he left, falling asleep counting not sheep, but the numerous crimes Dr. Cid had committed against his only son. Balthier knew, each time he spoke that litany in the privacy of his mind, that his path had been right; he had always been right. He had earned this freedom, and he could judge how he wished, without regret. Without regret, the pirate could face the one from whom he had run.

He smirked and swaggered, full of scorn, and acted as if he cared not. He stood and watched the old man fall, and he felt initially relieved, as he knew we would. Righteous, victorious; Balthier would have named those as well. It was done, the final payment for his freedom. It was all he had ever wanted.

Yet, as the night fell and the pirate sat alone, shadows plucking at the threads of his clothes and the light that had been so bright dissolving into nothing, Balthier felt nothing of those feelings. He felt nothing but regret, and he hated himself for it.


	3. The Day You Hoped Would Never Come

**Author's Note:**_ Ah, it's been a while since I put anything up. I have been extremely MIA. However, here is a new ficlet for your perusal. This one was a request by a friend of mine based on the lyrics below. Mostly Balthier/Fran-centric. If you have time, reviews are appreciated!_

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_Here's the day you hoped would never come_

_Don't feed me violence, just run with me_

_Through rows of speeding cars_

"_Speeding Cars," Imogen Heap_

She sweeps through the streets of Archades, heels clicking an unrelenting tempo against the cobblestones. She goes unheeding of the stares and mutters that follow her, surround her, envelope her. She is on a mission, and she will not be distracted for anything less than the world's ending. The malevolent petty judgments of the high brow Humes are no more to her than the mild irritation of flies on the plains; though she can see, now, why he loathes the place.

She pauses before a shadowed alley, one velvet ear twisting in the direction of its depths. She pivots and enters the darkness, arriving before long at a lantern caked with oil and grime. It barely casts a light on the unremarkable door it guards. She does not hesitate to open it, folding herself almost double to avoid touching the blackened doorframe. He is there, as she expected, hands full of spirits to make up for that which his eyes lack. Dead and heavy, they do not shift in the slightest as she delicately settles herself opposite him.

"Ah, Fran. If I had known you wished to join me for a nightcap, I would have chosen a more suiting venue." His words are teasing, jovial, but the drink has made him too slow to mask the bitterness underneath.

She stares at his hunched shoulders, the tense lines of his muscles, and her eyes give away nothing. "Tomorrow we breach Draklor."

The sentence is a simple one, but it carries the weight of an explosion. His bloodshot eyes shoot up, and a snarl breaks his carefully maintained countenance. "I'm bloody well aware of that."

"It would be prudent to prepare."

"What do you think I'm doing?" He gestures wildly at the dust covered bottles, the tarnished tankards, and the shadows that are so easy to hide in.

"If you intend to follow through with this, your fear must be mastered."

"I am not… afraid."

She hears the warning and ignores it. "It will not serve you well in those halls. He will use it as a weapon against us all."

His fist pounds the table; his other hand reaches for her, pushing aside his glass, dark liquid pooling in the depressions of the rough hewn surface. His fingers, still strong, still so young, wrap around her slender wrist. He twists it roughly as he leans across the wood. His tongue is thick with alcohol and lies. "I said I am not afraid!"

If he is hurting her, she does not show it. Her crimson eyes remain coolly on him. She watches his face, mottled with rage and terror he can no longer hide; hence why he lurks now in such a place, where none but she would seek to find him. This is the face he allows no one else to see, and this is why she will endure any pain for him.

She reaches her free hand to his cheek, claws gently resting on his temple. Her eyes, as always, are unreadable, but he needs not look there for answers in any case. Slowly, his grip loosens as he sees past his emotions once more. He sighs and shakes his head, the short hairs that darken his jawline tickling her palm. "Fran… I'm sorry."

"I will ever be beside you, Balthier. No matter the direction, we will run together."

"I am forever glad to hear it." He takes the hand he held captive and places it on his face. Cradled in her palms, he closes his eyes. "Run we shall, Fran. Into peril and out again, until we are as free as we claim."

He can't see the smile in her eyes, but in the warmth of her skin and the curl of her fingers, he knows.


End file.
